


How Does It Feel?

by rjhpandapaws



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Death, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings Realization, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-24 21:54:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30078888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjhpandapaws/pseuds/rjhpandapaws
Summary: Gavin is killed in action. The people closest to him mourn his loss, some recover, some don't. The story of an android who deviated a little too late.
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor, Tina Chen & Gavin Reed, Upgraded Connor | RK900 & Gavin Reed, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Tell Me. What is Grief Like?

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is made to hurt. please be careful.  
> -Panda

"Tell me eight-hundred. What is grief like?" Richard remembered asking this when his predecessor and his detective had to put their canine companion to rest. At the time, he hadn't realized how insensitive that was. He had only been curious. As he was designed to be.

But now, Richard knew what grief was like. Grief was watching all of the color drain from your world while everyone else got to keep theirs. Grief was the sensation of your thirium pump falling from your chest whenever your eyes passed over the empty desk. Grief was an empty hollow and all consuming at the same time. Grief was what kept your LED on red even when you weren't processing anything, when there was nothing to process because your detective was dead and it was your fault.

Grief was what lead you to break into a dead detective's apartment. Grief was what brought his best friend to your side. Grief was the tears rolling down Tina Chen's face when she looked at him.

"Richard," Grief was the pain that clung to her words. "Come back to the station, it's not the same without one of you there."

One of them. Only one of them, because Gavin Reed had been killed. One of them, because Richard was the only one of them left. Anger bubbled in his chest for a moment, and, for the first time in a week his LED flickered to yellow for a moment. Too quick for human eyes, then it was buried under the red of grief again.

His artificial breathing stuttered and an odd bark escaped his chest... he was crying. He'd never done that before, and Tina put a placating hand on his shoulder. He shook his head forcing the emotion away.

"Hey." She tried coaxing him to look at her by putting her other hand under his chin, "You know he would hate this right?"

Richard knew that. Gavin would take this as a personal offense. Red strobed in the room as the name rolled through Richard's mind. He'd been trying to avoid it.

"I can't Officer Chen. If I go back there, I will break." She sighed and let go of him.

"I'm going to bring a couple bottles of thirium with me when I come by tomorrow." She said as she left.

Don't. He thought, if you come back, you won't like what you find.

Richard let himself think, remember. He had a perfectly memory after all, it would be a shame not to use it. He laid back on the bed and let the memories play. They were the moments with Gavin that he cherished the most. The ones he felt were the most worth saving.

His LED fell into blue for a few seconds. He was content. Then, like all of his models did, he began pulling the memories apart, looking at the detective's body language. The way he behaved. The kindness that was shown to Richard in excess but used sparingly with others. The warmth and love Richard felt when Gavin's ocean green eyes fell on him. red filled the room.

^Unit stress level has exceeded 95% shut down period recommended.

Richard tried to clear the notification, but needed Gavin's code to do so. Right. He wasn't the administrator to his own code. He had never felt the need to be, he trusted Gavin with it. Funny how he didn't notice until it was too late all that Gavin would be taking with him when he died.

^Unit stress level has reached 100%  
Force shutdown? Y/N  
N  
Administrative code is needed to complete this action.   
Please enter the four digit code and on-file finger print.

Well his admin was dead.

^Unit stress has exceeded 100%   
Forced shutdown will be initiated.  
User: Gavin Reed. will be needed to reactivate this unit.

At the DPD the LED of the RK800 unit fell into red and stayed there.

This, Connor thought, is what Grief is like.


	2. Falling and Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina's perspective.

Gavin had been dead for a week and half, buried four of those days, and Richard had been missing for three of them. The android had spoken a kind eulogy at the funeral and then vanished. He had not only turned off his tracker, but physically removed it. He had left it on Gavin's headstone. All of that said, Tina really should have known things were only going to get worse when Hank approached her desk after a particularly tense dispatch call. She looked up at him and gave a weak smile, trying to seem like things were normal, but that was getting harder by the day.

"What can I do for you Lieutenant?" She asked, hoping like her, he would pretend that she didn't sound like she was on the verge of tears. The station just wasn't the same without one of them there, Gavin's bright, burning angry energy balanced by Richard's cool composure.

"We found your missing android." He gave her a gentle smile and set a piece of paper on her desk. In Connor's neat font like handwriting was Gavin's address, "Connor thinks it's best if you go. You were someone closest to Gavin and he thinks that might help coax him out."

She knew they were right, and it was kind of them to let her do this; but the part of her that had been hurt by Richard up and vanishing figured it would be best to let him stew a while. It had been three days though, so she grabbed her coat and headed out. Time to visit a place haunted by good memories, a place she hoped she wouldn't have to go back to.

She found Richard in Gavin's room. It was dark save for the red that Richard's LED was casting on the wall from his place on the edge of Gavin's bed. He was staring unblinkingly at the wall and didn't even react to her presence.

"Richard." It left her as more of a gasp of pain than a word. He looked just as composed as always, but the air around him was heavy with hurt and grief. He didn't look at her so she moved closer, coming to stand in front of him. "Come back to the station, its not the same without one of you there."

Red blinked rapidly in the room and an odd noise broke from Richard's chest. The perfect breathing motion stuttered, and Tina realized that odd sound had been a sob. There were no tears, but Richard was crying. The first thing other than apathy or irritation that he had ever displayed, and Tina was the only witness. He shook his head.

"Hey." She put her hand under his chin like she did with Gavin, trying to get him to look up, but the android refused to move. "You know he would hate this right?"

She hated pulling that card. Using a dead man to manipulate his surviving counterpart, but seeing him like this was hurting her.

"I can't Officer Chen." Officer Chen, not Tina, back to formalities, back to programming, back to the familiar. She could understand that. It didn't lessen the sting, but she understood. "If I go back there I will break."

Tina sighed and relented. She pulled away from him and forced a smile even though he wasn't looking at her. He needed a friend and she was going to be one. "I'm going to bring a couple of thirium bottles when I come by tomorrow." She said, forcing her voice to stay level as she turned to leave.

She cried on her way back to the station. When she got back she explained things to Fowler and asked for the morning off. She would try her best to have Richard there when she came in the afternoon and asked if he could be reassigned as her partner, so she could keep an eye on him. Then she went home. Not noticing the LRD of their other detective falling into the red.

In the morning she stopped by a corner store near the complex and picked up a six pack of thirium bottles. She parked in her usual place out of habit and headed up. The apartment was still and silent in a way that was heavier than yesterday's. Something was wrong. She rushed to Gavin's room to find Richard. It looked like he was in stasis, but she knew better. The pack of thirium fell to the floor and a couple of the bottles broke. She rushed toward him and shook him in a fruitless attempt to wake him even though she knew this wasn't stasis. It was from this distance that she saw his LED wasn't dim, but off. Beside him was what looked to be a sim card.

She didn't touch it. She called the station and asked for Hank and a patrol android, making it clear that he wasn't to bring Connor. They arrived a shirt time later. Through forced interface they learned that Richard was basically in permanent shut down. A fancy way of saying he was dead. He had over stressed himself somehow and gone into shutdown. Only his administrator could get him out, and for obvious reasons, that wasn't going to happen. The patrol android, Rhys, picked up the sim card and interfaced with it. When he spoke next it was in Richard's voice.

If this is being played, I am going to assume I have been found. Tina, I am sorry." The recorded voice wavered there, "I wanted to remember him, see him again but it hurt so much. I'll save you the details and an autopsy. I shut myself down, suicide if you will. My last requests are that my thirium pump be put with Gavin and that this card be given to Tina. I'm sorry for hurting you Officer Chen, but it's better this way."

Tina sobbed and hunched over on herself and fell to pieces. Hank wrapped his arms around her and held her against him. He asked Rhys to return to the station and explain things to Jeff. When the android had left he let Tina fall apart in his arms. He swayed with her in his arms and rubbed her back. Comforting her like a father would, but she could feel his breathing stutter every once in a while. He was forcing himself to keep it together for her. She was grateful for that, if nothing else, she had a pillar. Something Richard had needed but didn't know how to ask for.


	3. This, Is What Grief Feels Like

If Connor had to be honest, he hadn't felt much in the way of grief over Gavin's death. They hadn't been particularly close, they got along better, but they hadn't been friends. They had gotten along for the sake of Richard. He had asked them to. So, in that regard, what Connor had felt was chassis deep worry. Richard had been rather attached to Gavin. Hank and Connor both believed he would be the one to cause Richard to deviate.

They hadn't meant like this.

In the first couple of days after Gavin's death, Connor had hovered around Richard. His LED flickering between yellow and red, and Richard's constantly on red. The 900 model refused all of Connor's offers to interface, Hank's offers to talk, and suggestions to take a little time off. And then, after the funeral, he had vanished. Turned of his tracker, removed it, and vanished into the night so to speak. That had been when Connor had begun to panic, because at that time he had also stopped opening Connor's messages.

Three days. It had been three days since Richard had disappeared. Three days before they call a call about suspicious activity in a dead man's apartment. A lot, Connor learned, could happen in three days. He'd also learned that losing a companion and losing a companion and losing a family member hurt on two entirely different levels. They gave the call to Tina out of respect for Gavin. It was still his place and he would not have liked to have Hank and Connor there uninvited. So they had not gone. 

Connor learned what regret felt like after that. He knew the regret of actions he couldn't control, the days leading up to the revolution had taught him that. Now he knew the regret of actions not taken. Words unsaid. The regret of surviving. The guilt that sits on your shoulders when you out live someone you hold dear.

Something he now had in common with both Hank and Richard.

He knew something was off as soon as Officer Chen had left. It was something Hank had referred to as a gut feeling. Connor didn't understand the turn of expression. No matter how many times he explained that something was wrong, Hank would not let him leave. Then the messages came.

RK900-87: I don't like this feeling  
RK900-87: Thinking about him shouldn't hurt. We were friends

RK800-53: That's why it hurts. Its proof of how much you cared for him

Richard went radio silent after that. Tina must have arrived. A while later he started getting fragmented thoughts, half words, and bits of code, but whenever he tried to trace them back he was walled out.   
Then, a moment before the shut down signal came through, Connor saw one clear and complete thought,

Deviating feels a bit like dying, doesn't it?

Connor tried to send a message. A simple one. He received a sent notification. What he received in return made his LED fall to red and stay there.

^RK900-87: This unit has entered a stress related state of deactivation, please contact its administrator if you are able

His administrator was Gavin. Gavin was dead.

^Unit stress level has exceeded 90% seek out Lt. Hank Anderson.

And tell him what? I think Richard is dead? That wouldn't help anyone. So he stayed quiet. 

The next day Connor relearned the grief of actions not taken, and he agreed with Richard. The pain did feel a bit like dying. Connor took a cab back to his apartment and forced himself into stasis. He would come out of it when Hank needed him, but once the work day was over he would come back and rest. He understood emotional exhaustion now, even though androids weren't supposed to get tired. He didn't like the feeling, but going into stasis should fix it. That was all that mattered.

He wouldn't do to his closest friend what Richard had done to him. Keeping Hank from going through that kind of pain again was all that was motivating him now.


	4. Pillar

Hank found that he was slowing becoming an expert in grieving. After the revolution he had needed to learn to grieve for Cole in a way that wasn't going to kill him, he had reasons to stick around now. He still had his moments. There were nights when he thought about biting the bullet, but he was needed. Connor needed him, Sumo was starting to need extra help, and now that he was doing his job, that station was starting to need him too. Things were looking up, they were getting better.

Then Sumo's kidneys had failed, and things weren't better anymore. Connor fell apart, he had never lost anyone before. The android had looked at the dog like he had hung the stars in the sky, and losing him had thrown the android for a loop. That was how Hank had learned that even the detective models could cry. Hank tended to his own grief by helping Connor through his. He learned that helping someone else with their pain helped him process his better.

Gavin had been shot, and that hurt Hank more than he thought it would. They weren't close, not anymore, but they had been when Gavin had first got to the station. He'd taken Gavin under his wing, helped him get his bearings and then turned him loose on the rest of the station. A lot of what could be seen in Gavin's detective work had come from that version of Hank; his constant need to do better, his staying at the station too much, and his anger toward the officers that didn't do the one thing that they had taken an oath to. So in the months and years that followed Cole's death, when Hank became what the younger detective disliked the most, Gavin had pulled away.

When things had gotten better they had stated to rebuild the bridge. Hank had put in word for Gavin to get an android partner and along came Richard. Things were on the med, they were almost friends again. Then, like the things and people that had come before him, Gavin had slipped through his grasp too.

Tina, Richard, and Chris had been hurt the most by Gavin's passing. Chris and Tina had more of a handle on the feeling than Richard did. They had the added benefit of having lived for years rather than a matter of months, as well as being police officers under their belt. They dealt with some variation of the feelings of guilt and loss quite regularly. that wasn't to say that they weren't hurt by this. Tina and Gavin had been childhood friends, had met Chris at the academy and had become something more akin to family than just a group of friends. Hank had lost family before so he helped however he could.

He had tried doing the same with Richard, but all of his attempts were brushed off, and so were Connor. Then he had vanished. Done the android equivalent of dropping off the grid, and disappeared. didn't say where he was going or what he was doing. Just left. Though in retrospect where he had gone should have been obvious. 

Whenever Richard had needed help, he had gone to Gavin. It only made sense, that when needing help to process the loss of his pillar, going to the place where Gavin had lived would be his first choice. But retrospect, like always, was too little too late.

When the call came in, they gave it to Tina. Another thing that Hank would take back if only he could. He would have gone alone if it would have saved her from that. She and Richard weren't close. The 900 model had only been close to Gavin and Connor, but Tina had cared for him as she did with everyone.

Hank found himself holding her up as she cried and the small funeral she and Connor had put together. Simon, the android that had found and woken Richard was there, so was his partner Josh. Chris had come. Connor was giving a eulogy as best he could through his tears. Hank was representing the DPD, and Tina was there as one of Richard's friends.

Looking back, Hank saw a lot of things he would have liked to change. Actions he would have liked to taken instead, but what was done was done. They were here now, and as the one who had the best understanding of how it felt to be lost in grief, it was his turn to be the pillar.

A pillar for those who needed him. He would hold Tina together until she could do it on her own again, and he would do the same for Connor. Because that is what you do when you are the one that knows there will be a light at the end of all this.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: rjhpandapaws


End file.
